
Providers need to be alive to the risk of contractors becoming insolvent and how to limit the resulting inevitable disruption.
Sport England has been responding to queries by asserting that it would be published ‘by the end of this month’ and it was. It arrived on Monday 31 October, and can be viewed here.
The Code has, at its heart, five Principles of good governance:
Compliance with the letter of the Principles is not mandatory but Sport England and UK Sport:
‘hope that all funded bodies – regardless of their scale and the size of the award – would recognise the importance of these Principles.’
The Code will be mandatory for all sports bodies seeking public funding in the next funding period. That will include a number of charities seeking Sport England funding for the first time as a result of the extended remit of Sport England and in particular the focus on encouraging physical activity set out in the Government’s strategy for sport Sporting Future.
Following the launch of the Charter for Sports Governance, commentators expressed concern that the Code would not provide adequately for organisations that are seeking a modest amount of public funding to support work which they already do or face barriers to complying with some aspects of the Code. For example, many membership charities harness the passion of volunteers to do fantastic work encouraging people to make physical activity part of their lives. But the volunteer-run membership structure which is such a strength also makes it harder to embrace some aspects of the Code, such as the requirement for ‘independence’ at board level.
The Code neatly side-steps the risk of an inflexible one size fits all approach. The Code sets out three tiers of investment. UK Sport and Sport England will:
‘… at their sole discretion, place each of their investments into the Tier they consider most appropriate, taking account of the circumstances of the investment and the organisation, and the … broad definitions of the Tiers.’
The three Tiers (surely destined almost inevitably to be thought of as bronze, silver and gold) are:
Reviewing, the Code it is possible to highlight a number of interesting mandatory requirements. For full details of those, click here.
Now that the Code is in place, Sport England will need to consider how to ensure that National Governing Bodies and other organisations it funds comply with the code.
Where Tier 3 requirements apply:
‘Sport England and UK Sport will look for a formal commitment from organisations to meet Requirements within set timescales.’
In some cases that will involve real challenges as indicated above. For example:
Anthony Collins Solicitors is hosting a meeting of leaders from membership charities in the sport and leisure sector at the end of November. If you know anyone who may be interested in joining in this or future events along the same lines, please get in touch.
If you would like more information, please contact Shivaji Shiva.
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